User Articles

Why people with rare genetic mutations get left behind

Emily Kramer-Golinkoff can’t get enough oxygen with each breath. Advanced cystic fibrosis makes even simple things like walking or showering arduous and exhausting. She has the most common fatal genetic disease in the United States, which afflicts 40,000 Americans. But her case is caused by a rare genetic mutation, so medications that work for 90 per cent of people with cystic fibrosis won’t help her. The same dynamic plays out in other genetic conditions. Stunning advances in genetic science have revealed the subtle, insidious culprits behind these brutal diseases and have started paving the way for treatments. But patients with these exceedingly rare mutations have fewer options and poorer prospects than those with more typical forms of these diseases — and many are now pinning hopes on experimental gene therapies.

Gaza

Gaza strike kills 10, half children

An Israeli air strike flattened a three-storey home in Gaza City, killing 10 people — half of them children — as Arab mediators scrambled to restart a ceasefire. Israeli strikes killed at least 49 people in the past 24 hours, according to health officials. The dead in the early morning air strike in a neighbourhood in western Gaza City included three women and five children, according to Shifa Hospital, which received the bodies.

Explainer

10 hours ago

The battle for Kursk

Nearly nine months after losing chunks of the Kursk region to a surprise Ukrainian incursion, Russia announced that its troops have fully reclaimed the border territory. Ukraine denied it, saying the fighting was still continuing. If confirmed, Moscow’s victory in Kursk would deprive Kyiv of key leverage in US-brokered efforts to negotiate an end to the more than 3-year-old war by exchanging its gains for some of Russia-occupied land in Ukraine. Here are key moments of the battle for Kursk and its impact:

10 hours ago

Migration

12 hours ago

Florida Republicans with Cuban roots feel the heat

A few dozen women gathered at a posh Miami brewery on a recent evening to listen to US Representative Mario Diaz-Balart outline the Republican plans to retain their slim House majority in next year’s elections. In an hour of remarks, Diaz-Balart did not bring up immigration on his own. Diaz-Balart is one of three House Republicans in South Florida with roots in Cuba. Together, they are treading carefully in discussing President Donald Trump’s immigration offensive, which includes directly targeting some Cubans and Venezuelans, key parts of the GOP’s base in Florida.

12 hours ago

Ukraine

16 hours ago

Putin taunts Ukraine over Kursk ‘failure’

All Ukrainian troops have been forced from parts of Russia’s Kursk region, which Moscow lost control of last year to a surprise Ukrainian incursion, Russia’s top general said in a Kremlin meeting. Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff for Russia’s Armed Forces, gave Russian President Vladimir Putin the news in a meeting Saturday, Peskov told Russian state news outlet Interfax. Ukrainian officials did not confirm the claim. In its morning update Saturday, Ukraine’s General Staff said that its forces continue to hold back Russian troops in the Kursk sector, pushing back against Russian claims that Ukraine has been fully dislodged from the territory. In a statement, Putin congratulated the Russian soldiers and commanders and said that Kyiv’s incursion had “completely failed”.

16 hours ago

India

20 hours ago

Border skirmish escalates

Pakistani soldiers fired at Indian posts along the highly militarised frontier in disputed Kashmir for a second consecutive night, the Indian military said Saturday, as tensions continued to rise between the nuclear-armed rivals following a deadly attack on tourists last week. India has described the massacre, in which gunmen killed 26 people, most of them Indian tourists, as a “terror attack” and accused Pakistan of backing it. Pakistan denies the charge. The assault, near the resort town of Pahalgam in India-controlled Kashmir, was claimed by a previously unknown militant group calling itself the Kashmir Resistance. It was the restive region’s worst assault targeting civilians in years. In the days since, tensions have risen dangerously between India and Pakistan, which have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir. The region is split between them and claimed by both in its entirety.

20 hours ago

Legal

Protests after FBI arrests judge

The FBI has arrested a Milwaukee judge accused of helping a man evade immigration authorities, escalating a clash between the Trump administration and local authorities over the president’s sweeping immigration crackdown. Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan is accused of escorting the man and his lawyer out of her courtroom through the jury door last week after learning that immigration authorities were seeking his arrest. The man was taken into custody outside the courthouse after agents chased him on foot.

Canada

Canadians put off by bluster, border, booking fewer visits

Diana and Rick Bellamy initially planned to take a Caribbean cruise out of Houston before heading to Laurel, Mississippi, to visit the home of one of their favourite HGTV shows, “Home Town.“ The Calgary couple scrapped those plans and vacationed...

Attack

Russian general killed in bombing

A Russian general has been killed by a car bomb, Russia’s top criminal investigation agency said, in the second such attack on a top Russian military officer in four months that Moscow blamed on Ukraine. The Investigative Committee said that Lieutenant general Yaroslav Moskalik, a deputy head of the main operational department in the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, was killed by an explosive device placed in his car in Balashikha, just outside Moscow.

Gaza

UN says food stocks depleted

The World Food Program says its food stocks in the Gaza Strip have run out under Israel’s nearly 8-week-old blockade, ending a main source of sustenance for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the territory. The WFP said in a statement that it...

Thailand

Police plane crashes in the sea

A small police plane has crashed into the sea near a popular beach town in Thailand, killing at least five people on board, officials say. The plane was conducting a test flight to prepare for parachute training in Hua Hin district before it crashed around 8am, said Royal Thai Police spokesperson Archayon Kraithong. Officials did not immediately share the model of the propeller plane, but photos from the scene appeared to show a Viking DHC-6 Twin Otter.

Finance

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Explainer

India, Pakistan teeter on the brink of conflict. Here’s why

A deadly attack on tourists in Indian-controlled Kashmir has again moved India and Pakistan closer to war as the two rivals downgraded diplomatic and trade ties, closed the main border crossing and revoked visas for each other’s nationals. Pakistan has denied it was behind Tuesday’s attack that killed 26 mostly Indian tourists at a scenic spot in the Himalayan region, where India claimed it restored a sense of calm despite a decades-long rebellion. A previously unknown militant group calling itself Kashmir Resistance has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Remembrance

Luxon leads Anzac tributes at Gallipoli

New Zealand’s prime minister, Australia’s governor-general and Britain’s Princess Anne have gathered near the World War I battlefields on Turkey’s Gallipoli Peninsula at a dawn ceremony to remember the Australian and New Zealand soldiers who lost their lives in a tragic campaign 110 years ago. The gathering took place near a beach where the Anzacs first landed at Gallipoli at dawn on April 25, 1915.

Finance

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Nature

Wildlife springs back in California’s wildfire zone

Four months after the Los Angeles area wildfires tore through the Angeles National Forest and destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses in Altadena, wildlife is returning to the Eaton Fire burn area and scientists are closely tracking them. Kristen Ochoa, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles medical school, first began documenting the plants and animals that live in the area known as the Chaney Trail Corridor in 2024.